GIFT    OF 
MICHAEL  REESE 


THICS   .   .   . 


-^  AND  THE  -^ 


"NEW   FDUCATiON." 


BRYANT. 


Chicago. 

s.  c.  QRiaas  &  CO. 
1894- 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/ethicsneweducatiOObryarich 


BY    THE    SAMEJ  AUTHOR 


I.  The  World-Energy  and  its  Self-Con- 

servation.— (Griggs- &  Co.)     121110., 

PP-  305 ^i  50 

II.  HegePs  Philosophy  of  Art.    Translated 

and  accompanied  with  an  Introduc- 
tory Essay,  giving  an  outline  of  the 
entire  work.     (Out  of  print.)     8  vo....j;i   75 

III.  Philosophy    of  Landscape    Painting. 

pp.    300, •$!    00 

IV.  Goethe    as   a  Representative   of  the 

Modern  Art-Spirit.— 12  mo.,  pp.  31. ..$0  25 

V.  Historical  Presuppositions  and   Fore- 

shadowingrs  of  Dante's  "Divine 
Comedy,^'    8  vo.,  pp.  26 $0  15 

VI.  A  Syllabus  of  Psychology.  (2d  Edition. )$o  25 

VII.  A  Text  Book  of  Psychology.    (In  pre- 

paration.) 

VIII.  A  Syllabus  of  Ethics $0  25 

IX.  Eternity  a  Thread  in  the  Weaving-  of 

a  Life $0  25 


ETHICS 


AND  THE) 


"NEW  EDUCATION," 


BY 


Wm.  M.  Bryant,  M.  A., 

Instructor  in  Mental  and  Moral  Philosophy, 
St.  Ivouis  Normal  and  High  School. 


1  UNIVEBSIjIjYy 

CHICAGO. 

S.  C.  GRIGGS  &  CO., 
1894. 


A 


Copyright  by  Wm.  M.  Bryant 

1894. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


'YyHAT  is  here  offered  is  a  reproduction,  as  exact  as 
I  have  been  able  to  make  from  memory  of  an 
address  delivered  before  the  St.  Louis  Society  of 
Pedagogy,  January  20th,  1894.  Its  appearance  in 
its  present  form  is  due  to  the  suggestion  of  a  number 
of  friends  ;  and  I  take  the  liberty  of  saying:  here  that 
the  first  to  make  that  suggestion  was  Mr.  F.  E.  Cook, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Society  of  Pedagogy, 
alwa3^s  one  of  its  most  active  and  most  efficient  mem- 
bers, repeatedly  its  President,  now  chairman  of  its 
Executive  Committee,  and,  in  his  work  for  many 
years  as  principal  of  one  of  our  leading  schools,  a 
recognized  representative  of  the  New  Education 
in  its  wisest  and  worthiest  aspects. 


251365 


ETHICS  AND  THE 

"NEW  EDUCATION 

Mr.  President: — 

T  AM  here  to  tell  3^011  nothing  beyond  what  you 
already  know.  If  anything  I  may  chance  to  say 
should  be  altogether  new  to  you  it  must  by  that  fact 
prove  to  be  untrue.  Truth  is  but  the  absolute,  eternal 
form  of  mind.  Mind  is  but  the  fulfilment,  the  con- 
crete unfolding  of  Truth.  And  whatever  appeals  to 
you  at  au}^  time  with  special  force  and  freshness  of 
vital  import  must  yet  seem,  and  even  be  in  very  truth, 
only  a  simple  renewal  and  further  intensification  of 
what  had  always  hovered,  though  it  be  in  dimmest 
outline,  within  j^our  own  consciousness.  If  the  seem- 
ingly new  thing  is  true,  it  belongs  to  mind  as  mind; 
and  your  individual  mind  has  but  awaited  the  shock  of 
circumstance  to  wake  it  into  fuller  measure  of  con- 
sciousness as  to  what  by  right  must  ever  be  its  very 
own. 


THICS  A.\C  THE  '^XEIV  EDUCA  TIOX. 


And  that  is  the  reason  why  language,  which  is  but 
the  body  of  thought — why  thought,  which  is  but  the 
soul  of  language, — why  life,  which  is  but  the  central 
substance  of  every  possible  degree  of  thought — should 
be  so  full  of  ambiguities  The  richer  the  conception 
represented  by  an}-  term,  the  greater  the  variet}'  in 
the  shades  of  meaning  that  may  be  suggested  by  that 
term. 

And  so  in  all  our  educational  work,  as  in  all  the 
work  of  life,  there  is  nothing  that  demands  more 
careful  watchfulness  than  just  the  very  terms  which 
we  must  be  forever  using  to  give  outward  expression 
to  our  inmost  thoughts,  through  which  alone,  in 
turn,  our  lives  attain  or  can  attain  to  actual  definition. 

To  what  better  use,  then,  can  we  put  the  hour  than 
this:  That  you  and  I  in  company  devote  ourselves  to  a 
stud}"  of  a  few  of  the  terms  specially  apt  to  pro^'e 
misleading  through  the  very  wealth  of  meaning  of 
which  they  have  come  to  serve  as  the  outer,  organic 
form. 

And  first  of  all,  think  of  the  marvelous  aspects  of 
Revelation,  unfolded  to  us  through  that  distinctiveh' 
modern  stage  in  the  total  process  which  constitutes  in 
its  full  meaning  the  true  "Advancement  of  Learning  I" 
These  aspects  have  crammed  the  word  "Nature"  with 
such  volumes  of  fresh  meaning  for  us  as  to  render  it 
ambiguous  in  most  bewildering  degree. 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION: 


Old  as  the  world,  indeed,  is  the  explicit  affirmation 
that  "self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature." 
The  very  simplicity  and  imperious  practical  self- 
evidence  of  the  principle  thus  expressed  rendered  its 
early  conscious  formulation  inevitable.  But  the  prin- 
ciple alread}^  implies  a  "self"  to  be  preserved  and  a 
"nature"  in  the  midst  of  which  and  by  means  of 
which  that  self  is  to  make  sure  of  its  own  preserva- 
tion. 

Taken  in  its  most  immediate  significance,  indeed, 
the  principle  looks  first  of  all  to  the  preservation  of 
the  mere  animal  existence  of  man.  And  it  was  long 
since  pointed  out  that  Nature  presents  three  distinct 
sets  of  conditions  which  must  forever  predetermine 
the  life  of  man  in  the  sphere  of  his  mere  animal 
existence.  In  the  first  place  the  tropical  regions 
supply  man  with  everything  needful  to  satisfy  the 
immediate  demands  of  his  being.  If  he  is  hungry, 
there  is  food  always  to  be  had  for  the  mere  trouble  of 
gathering.  If  clothing  is  required,  nature,  unasked, 
supplies  fabrics  which,  with  scarce  a  change,  are  fully 
suited  to  such  needs.  If  shelter  is  desired,  a  few 
thrift}^  saplings  drawn  together  above,  and  covered 
with  the  luxuriant  foliage  always  at  hand,  will  very 
well  suffice.  With  such  conditions  there  is  nothing 
stimulating  man  to  enter  upon  any  higher  measure  of 
activity  ;  and  also  the  excess  of  heat  forbids. 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION. 


Again,  in  the  extreme  polar  regions  nature  is  ex- 
cessive in  its  severity  and  parsimonious  to  the  last 
degree  in  its  provisions  for  satisfying  human  wants  ; 
so  that  here  man's  whole  energ}-  is  taken  up  in  eking 
out  the  barest  ph3^sical  existence.  In  either  case  it  is 
scarcely  possible  that  man  should  ever  clearl}^  discover 
in  himself  anything  above  the  ever-recurring  neces- 
sities of  his  mere  daily  existence. 

It  is  in  the  intermediate  regions,  in  the  temperate 
zones  alone,  that  man's  relation  to  nature  has  been 
such  as  neither  to  lull  him  into  ceaseless  spiritual  lan- 
guor and  mere  sensuous  dream  on  the  one  hand,  nor 
to  overwhelm  him  with  the  difficulties  of  supplying  his 
immediate  physical  necessities  on  the  other.  Here 
there  is  just  warmth  enough  to  stimulate  and  cold 
enough  to  warn  ;  just  food  enough  to  sharpen  the 
appetite  and  not  enough  to  satisfy  ;  abundant  material 
for  shelter,  but  not  sufficient  shelter  to  which  nature 
has  already  given  shape. 

Always  in  this  region  man  is  confronted  by  the 
twin  brothers :  Fact  and  Possibility  ;  always  and 
everywhere,  too,  there  is  here  latent  the  suggestion 
that  Possibility  may  still  be  merged  in  Fact  ;  and  yet 
always  when  this  miracle  is  once  accomplished  Possi- 
bility fails  not  to  reappear  in  its  own  specific  charac- 
ter while  yet  assuming  new  and  freshly  luring,  freshly 
threatening  forms. 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''XEIV  EDUCA  TION. 


^ 


Possibility!  That  is  the  giant  Proteus  with  which 
from  the  beginning  the  Heracles  called  Man  has  been 
compelled  to  struggle.  And  this  perpetual  struggle  it 
is,  and  the  ceaseless  victory  involved  therein,  that  has 
been  the  indispensable  condition  upon  which  man 
could  ever  come  to  know  that  quality  of  genuinely 
divine  Sonship  which  constitutes  the  very  essence 
of  his  own  true   being. 

n. 

But  even  so  this  discovery  must  already  involve  the 
further  suggestion  that,  after  all,  self-preserv^ation  is 
only  the  "first"  law  of  nature  ;  that  in  fact  there  is  a 
second  and  higher  law  that  is  no  less  a  law  of 
"Nature,"  since  it  is  manifestly  involved  in  the  very 
being  of  man  himself.  And  because  forever  re-dis- 
covered possibility  is  forever  luring,  forever  driving 
man  onward  to  new  achievement,  and  since  each  new 
achievement  is  in  its  truest  significance  but  a  step  in 
the  enlarging  of  man's  actual  present  self,  there  cannot 
fail  to  dawn  upon  man's  consciousness  this  divinest  of 
all  possibilities  :  That  there  is  no  given  conceivable 
stage  of  advancement  beyond  which  man  may  not 
still  hope  to  pass  And  if  this  be  true,  then  clearlv 
that^second  and  hig^her  law  of  Xature  can  be  nothing  . 
else  and  nothing_less  than  that  of  self-realization. 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION: 


(  And  still  and  always  Fact  and  Possibility  present 
themselves;  and  in  this  higher  sphere  the}^  are  knowii 
as  the  Real  and  the  Ideal. 

Are  these  exclusive  the  one  of  the  other  in  this 
higher  sphere?  or  may  they  rightly  be  viewed  as 
complementary  aspects  of  a  concretely  unfolded  human 
world  ? 

In  seeking  a  clew  to  the  true  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion we  cannot  do  better  than  turn,  though  it  be  ever 
so  briefly,  to  the  most  finished  work  of  the  world's 
greatest  dramatist,  ''The  Tempest''  of  Shakespeare! 
Who  has  not  read  and  re-read  with  growing  wonder 
and  delight  this  marvelous  production  ?  And  in  3'our 
reading  you  can  scarcely  have  failed  to  notice  how 
the  whole  representation  does  but  set  forth  in  most 
impressive  fashion  the  fundamental  phases  of  relation 
between  the  Real  and  the  Ideal. 

On  the  one  side  the  phase  of  Idealism  is  represented 
by  the  good  Duke  Prospero.  On  the  other  hand  the 
phase  of  Realism  is  represented  by  the  Duke's  brother 
Antonio  and  by  the  King  of  Naples  and  his  Court. 
Prospero  gives  himself  over  wholh'  to  his  studies,  de- 
votes his  time  and  energ\^  exclusively  to  exploring 
the  ideal  world,  and  thus  drifts  inevitably  away  from 
the  "real"  world.  On  the  other  hand  Antonio  sees 
nothing  but  vagary  and  mere  illusion  in  the  Duke's 
pursuits.      So  that  not  only  does  he  take  up  and  will- 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION 


\\\%\\  perform  the  practical  duties  of  the  Dukedom, 
but  he  also  speedily  persuades  himself  that  he  is  in 
truth  the  rightful  ruler.  His  blind  ambition  cancels 
all  hesitancy  on  his  part  to  plot  the  destruction  of  his 
too  confiding  brother,  and  at  the  same  time  to  bring 
humiliation  upon  his  native  state  by  its  reduction  to 
the  condition  of  mere  vassalage  to  a  foreign  power; 
just  as  on  his  part  the  King  of  Naples,  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  extend  his  own  authority,  partici- 
pates in  the  ignoble  plot  of  Antonio. 

Thus  these  latter  see  nothing  but  the  "Realty"  of 
the  present  moment  and  greedily  grasp  at  that,  wholly 
regardless  of  the  shadowy  world  of  the  "Ideal."  And 
so  these  two  worlds  drift  asunder.  Prospero  is  set 
afloat  upon  the  frail  craft  of  his  own  learning  and 
speculation.  Only,  he  bears  with  him  his  choicest 
books  and  his  infant  daughter,  Miranda.  And  now, 
indeed,  it  seems  that  as  between  the  eternal  powers 
and  the  visions  of  this  dreamer  there  is  truest  unison. 

"There  they  hoist  us, 
To  cry  to  the  sea  that  roared  to  us  ;  to  sigh 
To  the  winds,  whose  pity,  sighing  back  again, 
Did  us  but  loving  wrong." 

And  upon  this  mystic  voyage  Miranda,  "wonder- 
ful" daughter  indeed  of  this  most  wonder-working 
Duke,  "did  smile,  infused  with_a_igrtitude  from 
heaven. ' ' 


ETHICS  AND  THE  "NEIV  EDUCA  TION^ 


Could  such  vo3'age  end  elsewhere  than  upon  the 
shores  of  the  Enchanted  Island?  There  alone  could 
the  magic  powers  of  Prospero  find  free  field  of  exer- 
cise. There  alone  could  his  prophetic  visions  assume 
unhindered  their  most  perfect  forms.  It  is  there  that 
Prospero  finds  Caliban,  the  living  embodiment  of  the 
grosser  brute  forces  of  Nature,  and  reduces  him  to 
something  approaching  at  least  automatic  service, 
friction-grumbling  though  it  be,  at  the  bidding  of 
human  will. 

There,  too,  he  discovers  Ariel,  the  spirit  of  the 
subtlest  phases  of  the  world's  space-filling  energy, 
and  through  whose  m3'sterious  electric  enginer}-  he 
fills  the  sky  with  tempest  or  with  sunshine  at  his  will. 
Truly  is  the  Enchanted  Island  the  proper  home  of  the 
splendid  revelry-  of  Idealism  in  its  separation  from 
the  sterner  aspects  of  the  world  of  Realty' ! 

But  meanwhile  how  fares  it  with  the  world  of  ex- 
clusive Realism  ?  Having  thrust  out  the  Ideal  from 
their  midst  and  from  their  very  thoughts  the  denizens 
of  that  world  can  now  live'  only  from  moment  to 
moment,  not  clearly  seeing  what  next  must  follow. 
/Mutual  trust  is  indeed  for  them  impossible,  for  each 
(knows  the  other  a  conspirator.  In  spite  of  them- 
selves, besides,  they  still  have  each  an  ideal,  though 
this  is  now  limited  to  the  mere  vision  of  the  possible 
attainment  of   purely  selfish   ends.      Yet  they  must 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCATION: 


(hold  together  for  mutual  defense,  for  mutual  support  ; 
nay  in  very  fear  of  one  another  and  hence  for  mutual 
surveillance,  must  each  be  near  to  each. 

Yet  spite  of  all  their  watchfulness,  and  spite  of  all 
their  wise  precautions,  they  find  themselves  at  length 
adrift  upon  an  unknown  sea.  Realism  has  failed 
utterly.  The  ship  of  State  has  lost  its  moorings  and 
plunges  helplessly  before  a  newly  risen  and  mysteri- 
ously desolating  tempest. 

And  where  should  they  be  driven  but  straight  upon 
the  shores  of  this  same  Enchanted  Island  where  Pros- 
pero  is  now  the  undisputed  master?  Not  elsewhere 
can  safe  harborage  be  found  for  them.  Failing  this, 
to  sink  to  the  bottom  of  the  bottomless  abyss  must  be 
their  doom.  Only  through  reunion  with  the  despised 
Ideal  can  the  vaunted  world  of  the  Real  be  saved  out 
of  the  tempest  into  which  it  has  been  driven  by  its 
own  follies. 

After  all  then,  the  Ideal  can  very  well  maintain 
itself  in  isolation  from  this  or  that  particular  form  of 
the  Real.  For  the  Ideal  is,  in  truth,  the  very  soul  of 
all  Realty  and  on  occasion  can  unfold  a  real  world  of 
real  life  and  beauty  from  and  within  its  own  infinitely; 
varied  resources.  On  the  contrary,  when  the  Real,  in 
whatever  of  its  forms,  is  seriously  taken  as  apart  from 
the  Ideal,  it  proves  destitute  of  any  central,  vitaliz- 


ETHICS  AND  THE  '\\E\V  EDUCATIOX 


ing  principle  and  hence  crumbles  and  fades  into  utter 
unreality  upon  the  first  breath  of  opposition. 

From  which  it  would  even  seem  that  the  Ideal  is  in 
truth  more  "real"  than  is  the  so-called  Real  itself. 

And  yet  in  any  phase  of  human  life  the  Ideal  apart 
from  the  Real  can  scarcely  save  itself  from  becoming 
more  or  less  fantastic  ;  just  as  the  Real  in  separation 
from  the  Ideal  sinks  unfailingly  into  ever  lower 
depths  of  degradation.  In  passing,  too,  we  ought  to 
remind  ourselves  that  separation  as  between  Real  and 
Ideal  can  at  most  be  nothing  more  than  relative.  For 
in  absolute  and  literal  separation  each  must  wholly 
cease  to  be. 

And  further,  it  is  precisely  here  upon  the  Enchanted 
Island  that  these  complementary  aspects  of  the  social 
world  must  once  more  be  brought  to  assume  their 
normal  relation  of  fused  union  and  vital  wholeness. 
And  Prospero,  the  "dreamer,"  is,  of  course,  the  first 
of  all  to  clearly  recognize  this  fact.  Xay,  he  prepares 
the  way  for  it  and  directs  and  even  seems — seems  even 
to  himself — to  actually  awake  the  very  tempest  but 
now  occuring,  and  to  just  that  end. 

Wholly  self-deprived  of  any  measure  of  prophetic 
vision  the  representatives  of  rash  Realism  are  driven 
in  helpless  amazement  upon  the  island.  And  once 
landed  here  by  Ariel's  help,  already  from  the  first 
moment   the}-  are  separated  into  groups  which    still 


ETHICS  AND  THE  '-NEW  EDUCATION: 


tend  more  and  more  to  fall  asunder.  The  grosser 
ones,  guided  solely  by  their  instincts,  fall  naturally 
and  inevitably  into  the  company  of  Caliban.  On  the 
other  hand  the  arch -conspirators — the  King,  the  king's 
brother  and  Antonio— constitute  another  of  these 
groups.  And  straightwa}'  their  perverted  natures 
are  manifested  in  the  monstrous  plot  of  the  latter  two 
against  the  sleeping  king. 

Meanwhile  Prospero  is  showing  the  superior  power 
of  the  Ideal  by  working  spells  that  bring  all  again 
into  one  complex  group  in  which  Prospero 's  daughter 
Miranda,  "the  wonder,"  is  alread}^  the  promised 
bride  of  Ferdinand,  the  king's  son — the  youth  whom 
the  world  of  Realism  has  not  yet  been  able  to  spoil 
and  reduce  to  its  own  gross  level ;  who  therefore  is 
most  akin  to  the  world  of  the  Ideal  and  who  must  for 
this  reason  be  the  first  to  make  discovery  of  the 
magician's  cavern,  which  is  but  the  normal  center  of 
this  ideal  world. 

It  is,  in  truth,  precisely  this  w^edding  of  the  beauti- 
ful daughter  of  Idealism  with  the  still  uncorrupted 
son  of  Realism  that  restores  the  world  to  its  divinest 
rhythm, — the  prophetic-feminine  leading  the  historic- 
masculine  to  ever  brighter  realms. 

So  Shakespeare  seems  in  his  dazzling  way  to  say  to 
us. 

And  yet  throughout    this    perfectly   realized    ideal 


l6  ETHICS  AND   THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION." 

representation  there  is  manifest  a  painful  sense  of 
contradiction  because  of  the  recognized  discrepancy 
between  what  is  and  what  should  be.  And  precisely 
this  painful  sense  of  contradiction  is  it  that  drives,^ 
and  has  ever  driven,  and  must  ever  continue  to 
drive  men  into  action — action  through  which  alone 
self-realization  is  in  any  measure  possible.  And  hence 
it  cannot  reasonably  be  doubted  that  in  very  truth 
pain  has  the  ver}^  highest  ethical  value.  Far  enough, 
indeed,  is  the  fact  of  pain  from  being  a  proof  of 
defect  in  the  total  World-order !  On  the  contrary 
careful  anal3^sis  proves  it  to  be  nothing  less  than  one 
of  the  indispensable  factors  of  an}-  conceivable  world 
having  a  genuinely  ethical  import. 

But  again  it  is  alreadj^  evident  that  the  process  of 
self-realization  involves  continuous  and  vital  relation- 
ship as  between  each  self  and  all  other  selves  Not 
mere  abstract  relations,  like  those  of  distance  and 
direction  between  bodies  in  space  ;  but  actual  concrete 
relations  without  which  souls  could  no  more  exist 
and  unfold  into  ever  richer  degrees  of  spiritual  reality 
than  could  masses  of  matter  aggregate  in  space  and 
exist  as  definite  bodies  apart  from  gravit}^  which  is 
the  very  essence  of  their  being  as  bodies. 

Nay,  pain  itself  is  one  essential  aspect  of  this 
relationship  as  between  soul  and  soul.  So  that  we 
are  bound  to  give  careful  consideration  to  what  on 


ETHICS  AND   THE  -WE IF  EDUCA  TIOX." 


first  view  is  the  amazing  and  even  appalling  fact  of 
pain  inevitably  suffered  by  each  through  all  and  for 
all.  Nor  may  we  safely  omit  to  note  that  the  effect 
upon  each,  of  the  pain  each  suffers,  must  depend  upon 
the  way  it  is  apprehended  and  endured  by  each. 

And  here  in  attempting  to  estimate  what  can  scarcely 
be  regarded  otherwise  than  as  the  vicarious  aspect  of 
human  relations  we  ma}'  very  well  turn  again  to  one 
of  the  world's  great  literary  works  for  fruitfulest 
suggestion.  Among  all  the  great  novels  of  the  world 
what  one  can  compare  in  complexity  and  subtlety  of 
character,  in  depth  and  delicacy  of  sentiment,  in  sus- 
tained vigor  of  portrayal,  with  Les  Miserablesf  No 
king,  but  only  a  peasant  is  its  hero.  No  queen,  but 
only  a  nameless  waif  is  its  heroine.  Not  the  attar  of 
roses  so  much  as  subterranean  odors  greet  you 
throughout  its  pages.  Yet  how  sublime  the  culmina- 
tion ! 

A  poor,  ignorant  wood-cutter  sees  his  sister's  child- 
ren starving.  His  immense  but  wholly  undisciplined 
strength  can  find  no  adequate  field  of  productive 
exercise.     What  to  do  ? 

Passing  a  baker's  window  he  sees  bread  in  abund- 
ance. Only  glass  between  him  and  plenty  !  And 
glass  is  transparent !  Hunger  on  this  side  ;  bread  on 
that  ;  and  only  a  transparent  medium  between  ! 
Under   such   conditions   how   could  a  mind  of   such 


i8  E THICS  A XD  THE  'WE If'  ED UCA  TIOX. ' ' 

siniplicit}"  be  expected  to  comprehend  that  the  glass 
is  but  the  illusory  fragile  representative  of  inflexible 
and  keen-edged  law  ? 

Na}^  at  that  moment  he  knew  nothing,  saw  nothing 
but  that  the  children  were  hungry  and  that  bread  was 
within  his  reach.  Only  with  the  crashing  of  the 
glass,  only  in  the  light  of  the  blood  flaming  out  upon 
his  hand  does  he  awake  to  the  fact  that  linked  all 
about  him,  and  not  less  within  him,  is  the  adaman- 
tine net  of  Law  binding  him  to  his  fellow-man  beyond 
all  possibility  of  separation.  For  the  first  time  in  his 
life  he  has  seriously  stumbled  and  violently  shaken 
that  chain  ;  and  its  sudden  fearful  clanking  has  filled 
all  his  world  with  harshest  discords. 

Discords  indeed  I  The  crash  ;  the  plunge  from  the 
nightmare  of  hunger  into  the  nightmare  of  conscious 
crime  ;  the  attempted  escape  ;  the  capture — and  five 
years  in  the  galle3's  for  failing  to  clearly  see  what  had 
been  to  him  indeed  the  Invisible  ! 

To  a  soul  like  that  how  wholly  fiendish  must  seem 
the  disproportion  of  such  corrective  to  such  fault ! 
Startled  into  keener  intellectual  consciousness  by 
such  suffering  he  is  blinded  to  every  aspect  of  self- 
realization  save  that  which  consists  in  such  growing 
strength  as  shall  be  applied  on  first  and  ever}-  oppor- 
tunit}'  to  square  accounts  with  the  monster  called 
Societv. 


ETHICS  AXD  THE  "XEIV  EDUCA 


For  this  purpose  he  assumes  the  air  of  docility  and 
attends  the  prison  school  For  this  purpose  he  prac- 
tices all  arts  that  promise  the  least  advantage  to  him 
in  the  ideal  struggle  with  what  is  to  him  the  hideous 
Reality — which  ideal  struggle  now^  alone  gives  mean- 
ing to  his  life. 

And  shall  he  not  test  his  growing  strength  and 
skill  betimes  in  efforts  to  escape  from  the  cruel  clutch 
with  w^hich  this  monster  now  has  such  fast  hold  upon 
him?  Three  exercises  of  this  kind  in  his  effort  at 
self-education  costs  him  fourteen  additional  j^ears  in 
the  galleys  !  So  that  not  until  the  end  of  a  nineteen 
years'  course  is  he  graduated  from  this  university  of 
crime  and  presented  wdth  the  fatal  diploma  consisting 
of  the  yellow  passport  which  he  must  ever3'where  dis- 
play ! 

You  remember  his  appearance  in  the  village  four 
days  after  his  discharge  from  prison — his  rude  dis- 
missal from  every  inn  ;  his  fruitless  attempt  to  pur- 
chase food  and  shelter  at  private  dwellings  ;  the  fear 
and  horror  everywhere  awakened  by  his  presence  and 
his  final  kindly  reception  by  the  good  Bishop  of  the 
village. 

You  wall  remember  his  fairly  childish  delight  at 
being  addressed  in  respectful  tones  and  terms.  You 
will  remember  his  awaking  in  the  night,  the  return — 
it  was  night  indeed  ! — of  the  long-cherished  purpose 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  ED  CCA  TION. 


to  avenge  himself  upon  societ}-.  You  will  remember 
the  inner  struggle,  the  newly  awakened  sense  of 
shame,  the  victory  of  the  long-cherished  passion,  the 
robber}^,  his  escape,  his  capture  and  return  b}^  the 
officers.  You  will  remember  how  the  Bishop  and  his 
household  were  alread}^  aware  that  the  man  they  had 
dealt  with  so  kindly  had  robbed  them. 

And  now  the  splendid  efficienc}'  of  the  legal  arm 
of  the  Social  Organism  is  once  more  proven !  The 
house-breaker,  the  galley-slave,  the  ungrateful  robber 
of  the  only  man  who  had  befriended  him — can  the 
Law  now  do  otherwise  than  firmly  close  its  iron 
fingers  upon  him  and  crush  out  a  life  so  manifestly 
destitute  of  every  worthy  human  quality  ? 

The  officers,  proud  indeed  of  their  achievement, 
drag  the  prisoner  to  the  Bishop's  door.  The  door 
opens.  There  is  the  group  :  the  serene  Bishop,  the 
triumphant  officers,  the  stolid,  desperate  man  who  is 
once  more  experiencing  the  futility  of  his  purpose  to 
avenge  himself  upon  society.  Not  a  word,  not  even  the 
slightest  look  of  resentment  on  the  part  of  the  patri- 
archal Bishop  !  Rather,  instantly  comprehending  the 
whole  situation,  he  exclaims  in  kindliest  tones: 
"Ah!  so  you  have  returned.  I  am  glad  to  see  you. 
Did  3'ou  not  know?  I  gave  3'ou  the  candle-sticks  too. 
They  are  silver  and  are  worth  two  hundred  francs. 
How  was  it  that  you  failed  to  take  those  with  the 
rest?" 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCATION.' 


To  Jean  Valjean  that  was  nothing  less  than  the 
voice  of  an  angel!  To  the  officers  it  could  but  bring 
confusion  and  deepest  mortification.  They  had  made 
so  great  a  blunder,  then?  The  prisoner  had  told  the 
truth  in  saying  the  plate  had  been  given  him  by  an 
aged  priest?  The  Bishop  assures  them  that  this  is 
only  the  simple  truth;  he  brings  the  candlesticks, 
puts  them  in  the  hands  of  Jean  Valjean  and  dismisses 
the  officers. 

In  the  mind  of  Jean  Valjean  what  a  whirl  !  He  is 
at  liberty.  He  will  not  be  taken  back  to  prison.  He 
has  been  forgiven  his  ingratitude.  In  his  universe 
two  planets  have  collided  and  are  fusing.  The  two 
planets  are  rude  Strength  and  ineffable  Love.  He 
trembles.  His  strength  seems  broken.  It  is  only 
the  tremor  of  divine  Love  breaking  through  the 
granite  rudeness  of  his  Strength. 

When  the  officers  had  gone  the  Bishop  said  gravely 
and  tenderly:  "Never  forget  that  you  have  promised 
me  to  use  the  proceeds  of  this  silver  in  becoming  an 
honest  man."  Then  he  added:  "Jean  Valjean,  my 
brother,  3^ou  no  longer  belong  to  evil,  but  to  good.  I 
have  bought  your  soul  of  you.  I  withdraw  it  from 
black  thoughts  and  the  spirit  of  perdition,  and  give  it 
to  God.'- 

Stunned,  humbled,  elated,  confused,  transfigured, 
Jean  Valjean  left  the  presence  of  this  living  Crucifix; 


ETHICS  AX D  THE  'WEW  EDUCATION 


and  yet  through  all  his  wanderings  and  amid  all  his 
struggles,  never  for  a  moment  did  he  lose  the  living 
Presence  of  the  Divinit}^  thus  represented,  from  his 
soul. 

And  swiftly  does  event  follow  upon  event  in  the 
further  unfolding  of  his  life — his  quiet  entrance  into 
a  struggling  village;  the  new  process  in  manufacture; 
the  creation  of  wealth;  the  building  up  of  the  town; 
the  liberal  and  noble  dispensing  of  wealth;  the  un- 
hesitating sacrifice  of  self  for  the  sake  of  others,  even 
to  the  extent  of  wholly  renouncing  the  new  sweet  life 
of  reconciliation  to  the  existing  social  world — na}^ 
to  the  extent  of  denouncing  himself  in  open  court  as 
the  real  galle3-slave  so  long  lost  sight  of,  and 
this  in  order  that  he  might  save  from  a  repetition  of 
his  own  dreadful  experience  one  who  had  been  guilty 
of  a  minor  offense  indeed,  but  who  was  now  about 
to  be  mistakenl}^  identified  with  and  punished  as  the 
long  undetected  and  still,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law, 
altogether  irreclaimable  Jean  Valjean  himself;  finally 
his  perilous  journey  through  the  sewer  for  the  pur- 
pose of  rescuing  Marius — all  this  done,  and  his  career 
is  ended. 

And  ceaselessly  hovering  near  this  transfigured 
soul  is  that  blackest  shadow  of  things  evil,  which 
nevertheless  is  firmly  assured  of  itself  as  the  very  per- 
sonification of  all  good — the  absolutel}'  consciencious 


ETHICS  AND  THE  'N'EW  EDUCA  TIOX.' 


representative  of  the  dead,  and  therefore  deadly,  forms 
of  mere  conventionality — the  ver}^  impersonation  of 
that  diabolical  spirit  of  Injustice  which  sincerely, 
devoutly  believes  that  Justice  and  Mercy  have  nothing 
in  common, — the  inflexible,  incorruptible,  fanatical 
embodiment  of  "Law  and  Order,"  Javert. 

It  is  his  business  to  hunt  down  men  w^ho  have  been 
made  demons  by  the  galleys.  It  is  his  pride  never 
to  let  one  escape  his  vigilance  ;  it  is  the  proof  of  his 
worthiness  that  he  keeps  his  eye  fastened  upon  the 
outcast;  it  is  his  glory  to  protect  society — finished, 
faultless  Society — not  merely  from  the  actual  depre- 
dations of  such  lost  souls,  but  also  from  contamina- 
tion through  merest  casual  contact  with  them,  though 
this  be  unawares  ;  and  above  all  from  the  scandal  of 
seeing  them  prosperous  and  honored,  as  if  redemption 
from  the  very  pit  of  the  Inferno  were  not  merely  a 
possibilit}^  but  also  an  actually  realized  present  fact ! 

And  yet  even  Javert  is  not  wholly  impervious  to 
the  subtle  chemistr}^  of  the  divine  Light  that  emanates 
from  a  truly  noble  character.  Each  time  he  comes  in 
contact  with  Jean  Valjean  there  is  an  unconscious 
molecular  readjustment  of  his  seemingly  impervious 
nature. 

And  at  length  the  climax  comes.  After  the  strug- 
gle at  the  Barricades  and  the  deliberate  saving  of 
Javert's   life  by  Jean  Valjean,  there  is  the  sudden, 


ETHICS  AND  THE  'N'EIV  EDUCATION. 


unexpected  meeting  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  sewer, 
with  the  fresh,  pathetic  evidence  of  Jean  Valjean's 
measureless  self-sacrifice.  Making  no  effort  to  escape, 
he  onl}^  asks  that  he  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  re- 
storing the  wounded,  helpless,  unconscious  3'outh  to 
his  home — to  the  sane  and  clearly  conscious  world. 

Already  and  in  spite  of  himself  Javert  is  trans- 
formed. He  assents  to  an  act  of  kindness  while 
"Duty*'  is  left  waiting.  He  even  so  far  forgets  him- 
self as  to  assist  in  the  performance  of  a  deed  of  mere}- 
— to  be  the  mere  assistant  in  such  deed  when  the 
chief  performer  is  the  very  outlaw  whom  of  all  others 
he  has  for  years  been  ceaselessly  tracking  and  eagerly 
hoping  to  bring  to  justice  ! 

To  discover  this  noted  convict  and  once  more 
make  him  subject  to  the  Law — that  would  be  the 
worthy  crowning  of  a  truly  honorable  career !  And 
3'et  under  the  spell  of  this  great  soul  in  hiding  from  the 
Law — the  Law  that  has  itself  become  ferocious — 
Javert  quite  forgets  himself !  He  allows  his  prisoner 
to  go  alojie  to  his  room  to  change  his  clothing.  Will 
not  the  prisoner  escape?  Javert,  self -forgetting, 
stands  meekly  below — hoping  the  prisoner  z^:-/// escape! 

Nay,  by  this  time  Javert  dimly  comprehends  this 
splendid  being.  He  knows  he  will  not  attempt  to 
escape.  He  knows  he  will  return.  And  he  does  re- 
turn.    He  opens  the  door,  steps  upon  the  pavement, 


ETHICS  AXD  THE  'WEIV  EVrCATIOX.' 


looks  about — there  is  no  officer  there  !  Javert  has 
alread}'  walked  rapidly  awa}^ — but  toward  the  bridge 
across  the  plunging  current  of  the  river. 

In  these  last  moments  he  has  even  seen  through  to 
the  beautiful  soul  of  this  man  whom  he  has  so  long 
and  relentlessh^  been  pursuing  in  full  belief  that  he 
was  thus  but  doing  worthiest  work.  Xow  for  the  first 
time  he  clearl}^  sees,  what  before  he  had  not  in  the 
dimmest  wa}'  suspected,  that  to  appl}^  the  forms  of 
law  in  such  wise  as  to  deal  with  this  man  as  if  he 
were  a  criminal  would  be  nothing  less  than  the  black- 
est of  sins,  the  most  monstrous  injustice. 

And  yet  by  the  strict  forms  of  Law,  which  Javert 
has  alwa3'S  hitherto  looked  upon  as  wholly  infallible, 
Jean  Valjean  ought  to  be  arrested  and  returned  to  the 
galleys.  Failing  to  do  this  Javert  himself  becomes  a 
criminal.  To  Javert 's  intelligence  the  contradiction 
is  wholly  insoluble  ;  and  from  the  middle  of  the  bridge 
he  looks  down,  and  in  the  plunging  river  below  sees 
the  one  safe,  sure  channel  by  which  he  may  escape 
from  the  still  more  wildly  plunging  stream  of  events 
by  which  he  has  been  swept  hither. 

But  into  that  same  stream  the  great  sewer  itself, 
from  w^hich  Jean  Valjean  has  but  just  emerged, 
empties  its  contents — perchance  to  be  purified. 

The  sewer  ?  That  is  not  merely  the  great  sewer  of 
Paris.     It  is  the  great  World-Sewer  of  crime  and  sin 


ETHICS  AND   THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION: 


and  shame.  And  this  cowering  convict — nay,  this 
angel  from  the  gallej^s — has  for  years  been  struggling 
up  and  down  its  dark,  noisome  lengths  for  no  other 
purpose  than  that  of  saving  other  souls  from  perishing 
amid  its  horrors. 

Poor  Fantine,  not  vicious,  but  onh^  ignorant  of  the 
real  world,  and  hence  trusting  the  world  without 
reserve,  not  dreaming  that  Real  and  Ideal  could  fail 
to  coincide,  how  could  she  fail  to  be  bewildered  by 
the  fearful  contradictions  into  which  such  blind  trust- 
fulness has  plunged  her?  To  her,  thus  awakened, 
organized  society  can  have  no  realt}^  save  in  its  purely 
legal  aspect.  And  in  this  aspect  Society  is  for  her 
nothing  else  than  a  heartless,  purely  demonic 
mechanism  having  but  this  single  purpose:  To  crush 
live  souls  into  ever  lower  depths  of  the  wretchedness 
of  living  death. 

Hence  is  it  that  with  the  fatal  fever  of  life's  enigma 
upon  her  she  can  only  shiver  and  gasp  and  die  at  the 
apparition  of  faultless — that  is,  soulless — Societ}^  as 
persgnifiedjby  _the  inflexible,  incorruptible  savage, 
Jayert.  It  is  only  the  transfigured  fugitive  from  such 
hopelessly  unjust  justice  that,  in  the  last  moments  of 
the  poor  dazed  soul,  can  close  her  eyes  to  the  shame 
and  despair  of  the  world  that  has  so  cruelly  ensnared 
her.  And  this  he  does  with  such  reverent  tenderness 
that  a  halo  seems  to  hover  about  her  wan  features  as 


ETHICS  AMD  THE  ''NEW  EDUCATIOy: 


if  to  show  that  her  e3^es  are  just  opening  upon  the 
splendors  of  a  more  divinely  ordered  world. 

Truly  may  it  be  said  :  Her  sins  were  forgiven  her. 
And  yet  let  us  speak  waril}^  here  also  In  and  of 
itself  no  sin  can  be  forgiven.  All  sin  is  unpardonable 
— absolutely  so.  Only  the  sinner  can  be  forgiven  ; 
and  that  only  when  he  separates  himself  from  his  sin. 
And  as  for  Fantine,  what  moment  of  her  existence 
but  was  filled  with  the  repentance  of  agonized  de- 
spair, not  ceasing  to  struggle,  though  it  be  in  frantic 
fashion,  to  expiate  her  offense  upon  the  cross  of  Life's 
most  poignant  contradiction.  And  the  meaning  and 
saving  efficacy  of  this  unequal  struggle  is  shown  her 
in  her  last  hours  b}^  this  new  living  crucifix,  Jean 
Valjean,  who,  to  the  legal  world,  was  still  a  mere 
destroyer. 

But  the  doubly  orphaned  little  Cosette  must  also  be 
rescued  from  even  the  possibilities  of  the  sewer.  It 
is  this  in  fact,  that  constitutes  the  more  immediate 
motive  leading  Jean  Valjean  to  break  through  the 
forms  of  Law  that  once  more  begin  gathering  about 
him  after  his  self-denunciation  in  the  Arras  Court. 

Was  this  jail-breaking  a  relapse  into  lawlessness — 
a  real  return  to  the  sewer — on  his  own  part?  No! 
Not  otherwise  at  least  than  from  the  standpoint  of  ex- 
treme legality  personified  by  Javert.  For  two  catual 
offenses  the  simple  form  of  Law  might  still   demand 


28  ETHICS  A ND  THE  ''NEW ED UCA TION. ' ' 

an  answer  from  him.  But  the  graver  of  the  offenses 
had  long  since  been  estimated  by  the  good  Bishop,  as 
sole  "prosecuting  witness,"  from  the  higher  ethical 
point  of  view,  and  he  had  refused  to  look  upon  it  as 
constituting  a  righteous  cause  of  complaint.  Na}'  he 
had  even  made  the  ver}'  offense  itself  the  occasion  of 
proving  the  genuiness  and  depth  of  his  good-will  as 
toward  the  outcast,  and  this  in  such  degree  as  to 
awaken  hope  and  self-respect  upon  the  part  of  the 
outcast. 

And  the  other  offense — that  of  the  little  Gervais 
and  the  bit  of  money — had  not  Jean  Valjean  atoned 
for  that  a  thousand  times  since  then?  Judged,  not  by 
the  letter  that  kills,  but  by  the  spirit  that  gives  life, 
Jean  Valjean,  at  the  time  of  his  last  jail-breaking  and 
escape  from  Javert,  so  far  from  being  a  criminal  and 
worthy  of  bonds,  was  one  of  the  saintliest  of  all  the 
saints  that  have  ever  walked  the  earth  !  Under  such 
conditions  it  was  his  duty  to  break  from  the  jail  of 
conventionality/ and  save  Cosette  from  the  Inferno 
of  the  Thenardier  household. 

And  yet  he  accomplishes  this  task  only  to  bring 
her  at  length  into  relationship  with  Marius — Marius, 
who,  in  his  youthful  inexperience  and  impetuosit}^ 
becomes  involved  in  contradictions  and  is  swept  into 
the  struggle  of  the  barricades  and  thus  unwittingly 
plunges  into  the  sewer  of  crime,  from  which  he  too  is 


ETHICS  AXD  THE  ''XEW  EDUCATlOXr  29 

saved  b}^  the  self-denying  vigilance  of  Jean  Valjean. 

True,  this  last  act  of  devotion  is  done — with  what 
passionate  whirl  of  mingled  feeling  I — immediately  in 
the  interest  of  Cosette ;  but  also  essentially  in  the 
interest  of  that  divine-human  Ideal  which  Jean  Val- 
jean himself  had  come  to  embody  in  wondrous  meas- 
ure of  concrete  reality,  yet  without  dreaming  in  the 
least  degree  that  he  had  risen  to  such  splendid  height 
of  fulfilled  being. 

And  so,  with  the  accomplishment  of  this  task  of 
saving  the  youth  who  had  freely  offered  his  life  in  a 
way  lacking  wisdom,  indeed,  but  yet  in  the  noble  cause 
of  human  freedom,  Jean  Valjean  had  insured  the  honor 
and  happiness  of  his  foster-child  Cosette,  and  in  so 
doing  had  fairly  rounded  out  his  own  world  to  its  com- 
pleted form.  But  one  thing  more  remains  for  him  in 
this  sphere  of  his  existence. and  that  is:  To  pass — 
and  who  can  doubt  the  reality  of  the  transition? — 
through  the  ethereal  gates  of  his  own  transfigured  life 
into  the  still  richer  realms  of  activit}'  awaiting  his  re- 
fined and  nobly  developed  spiritual  powers. 

"Made  perfect  through  suffering  I"  Xot  onh' 
through  his  own  suffering,  but  through  the  suffer- 
ing of  others  as  well  !  And  yet  did  the  divine  deed 
of  the  good  Bishop  cost  him  any  real  suffering?  Was 
it  not  rather  a  joy  to  him  to  do  as  and  what  he  did  ? 
Scarcely  can  it  be  doubted  that  such,  in  the  immediate 


JO  ETHICS  AND  THE  '' NEW  EDUCATIONS 

instance,  was  the  case  But  that  only  brings  into 
clear  view  the  fact  that  through  a  whole  long  life  of 
self-forgetting  sacrifice  the  Bishop  had  attained  a 
divinit}'  of  soul  to  most  men  wholly  inconceivable. 
So  that  what  must  make  the^n  blind  with  fury  only 
stimulated  him  to  clearer  vision  through  his  superior 
power  of  Love. 

In  such  wise,  and  in  such  wise  only,  are  the  finest 
phases  of  the  education  of  human  souls  accomplished. 

III. 

But  even  so,  it  is  evident  that  all  genuinely  educa- 
tional work  involves,  and  of  necessity  involves,  what 
can  scarcely  be  rightly  named  otherwise  than  as  the 
Purgatorial  Factor. 

No  graver  error  has  ever  found  adoption  in  the 
course  of  educational  theorizing  than  that  of  suppos- 
ing that  all  educational  work  ought  to  be  made  wh^y 
pleasurable  ;  that  the  factor  of  pain  is  detrimental  and 
ought  to  be  wholl}'  eliminated  ;  that  all  lessons  must 
be  made  "interesting"  and  delightful.  The  true 
mission  of  the  teacher  is  not  to  lull  souls  into  a  sense 
of  self-satisfaction  and  security.  On  the  contrary  his 
mission  is  to  wake  life  into  increasingly  complex 
phases  and  into  ever  intenser  degrees  of  manifCvSted 
energ}^  And  this  can  be  done  only  at  the  expense  ol 
a  greater  or  less  degree  of  pain, 


ETHICS  A MD  THE  ''lYE W  ED UCA TION. ' '  j/ 

Make  the  lessons  interesting?  To  whom?  In  what 
sense?  Interesting  only  to  the  infantile  mind?  "In- 
teresting" only  in  the  sense  of  "amusing?"  Is  the  in- 
fantile mind  forever  to  retain  its  infancy  ? — forever  to 
remain  in  the  speechless,  thoughtless,  deedless  state  ? 
Nay,  it  is  to  become  articulate,  to  unfold  its  divine 
inner  possibilities  into  the  actuality  of  outer  speech 
and  deed.  The  infant  must  be  led  to  take  in- 
terest in  things  not  infantile.  Attention  is  to  be 
drawn,  even  by  force  and  divine  violence,  if  need  be, 
away  from  the  trivial  and  vanishing  to  the  essential 
and  eternal.  For  only  by  such  transferrence  of  his 
interest  is  it  possible  that  the  child  should  ever  be- 
come in  very  truth  and  deed  a  man. 

By  no  means,  then,  is  it  to  be  our  first  study  to 
keep  the  child  out  of  Purgatory.  Rather  are  we  be- 
times in  duty  bound  deliberately  to  plunge  him  into 
Purgator}- — plunge  him  in  on  the  one  side  and  bring 
him  out  on  the  other !  We  are  to  show-  him  how  to 
cease  to  be  a  child,  how  to  become  in  truest  sense  a 
man.  We  are  to  show^  him  the  true  secret  of  Ceasing 
and  Beginning  ;  of  Living  and  Dying  ;  of  that  daily 
dying  which  is  involved  in  the  very  idea  of  perpetual 
and  perpetually  increasing  Life  We  are  to  show  him 
how  the  dying  of  interest  in  the  particular  rose  that 
fades  is  involved  in  the  unfolding  of  genuine  living 
interest  in  the  fadeless  T3^pe  of  Rose  that  blooms  with 


32  ETHICS  AND  THE  "XEM  EDUCATION:' 

perfect  beaut}^  in  the  soul  alone.  We  are  to  so  guide 
him  that  he  ma}'  come  to  actuall}^  see  for  himself 
what  splendor  of  meaning  there  is  in  the  suggestion 
that  he  ought  to  set  his  affections,  his  inmost  interest, 
"not  upon  things  on  the  earth,"  things  that  have  no 
element  of  perpetuit}^  "but  upon  things  above," 
things  that  constitute  the  soul's  own  divinest  Life. 

That  Death  is  involved  in  Life  is,  indeed,  already 
a  commonplace  remark.  Modern  science  has  already 
shown  that  so  far  from  this  being  a  mere  rhetorical 
phrase  and  poetic  extravagance  it  is  rather  a  realistic 
fact  of  the  most  prosaic  type  and  absolutely  universal 
in  the  whole  range  of  living  beings. 

And  5'et  long  ago  poetic,  which  is  also  prophetic, 
vision  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  necessity  of  Death  as 
involved  in  the  full  measure  of  Life.  And  so  clear 
was  this  vision  that  it  focused  itself  upon  the  horror 
oi  not  being  able  to  die  ! 

You  will  remember  how  Eos,  the  goddess  of  the 
Dawn,  came  to  regard  her  own  destin}'  as  bound  up 
with  the  destin}'  of  a  mortal  Once  the  wife  of  the 
human  husband,  Tithonos,  the  measure  of  divine 
happiness  seemed  to  her  to  be  attained.  And  yet  she 
could  not  be  long  in  awaking  to  the  consciousness 
that,  while  she  was  immortal,  Tithonos  belonged  to 
the  race  of  mortals. 

After  all,  then,  the  Real  failed  to  coincide  with  the 


ETHICS  AND  THE  "NEW  ED UCA TION. ' '  33 

Ideal  even  in  the  life  of  the  goddess.  And  so,  re- 
membering an  unclaimed  boon  she  had  long  ages  ago 
been  promised  by  Father  Zeus  she  hastened  to  him 
and  prayed  that  the  boon  might  now  be  granted.  And 
Father  Zeus  said:  "It  shall  be  as  you  desire.  What 
will  you  have?"  And  Eos  prayed:  "Oh,  make  my 
husband  immortal ! ' '  And  yet  as  time  went  on  Eos 
discovered  to  her  infinite  dismay  that  after  all  she  had 
made  the  worst  conceivable  mistake.  She  had  failed 
to  complete  her  prayer  by  adding  this  further  request: 
"And  give  to  him  eternal  youth."  And  so  it  was 
that  Tithonos  grew  old,  and  feeble,  and  blind,  and 
querulous — and  yet  was  wholly  unable  to  die  ! 

A  fatalit}^  indeed  for  Tithonos,  and  also  for  the 
beautiful  Goddess  of  the  Dawn,  whose  blooming 
youth  and  beauty  were  renewed  through  death  with 
each  succeeding  da}' !  Blooming  Life  bound  irre- 
trievably to  living  Death !  Impossible  that  this 
should  be  endured  !  And  so  Tithonos  was  put  away 
in  a  cavern — in  a  living  tomb — so  that  his  cries  might 
not  be  heard  and  so  that  his  withered,  unsightly 
features  and  figure  might  not  torture  the  eyes  of  the 
Goddess. 

'Even  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  human  conscious- 
ness, then,  men  have  discerned  this  truth:  That  if 
you  eliminate  death  from  life,  life  itself  becomes  a 
living  death  !     And  while  we  listen  to  the  clear  dawn- 


34  E  THICS  A  ND  THE  '  'NE IV  EDL  'CA  TION. ' ' 

music  of  the  myth,  it  is  as  if  through  such  medium 
the  finest  instinct  of  the  divinely  prophetic  spirit  of 
antiquit}'  were  uttering  this  exclamation:  O/i,  blessed, 
7i'orld-reneii'ing  Death,  that  is  forever  turning  dark 
decay  into  ever  freshly  dawning  Life! 

But  is  Eos  merely  a  mythical  personage  vaguely 
looming  alone  in  far-off  antiquity?  or  may  it  be  that 
she  is  indeed  a  veritable  reality  of  all  time,  and  that 
she  is  even  familiarh^  know  to  us  to-da}-  ?  You  know 
the  answer.  Eos  is  a  realty !  She  is  ceaselessly 
present  in  our  midst.  She  is  the  goddess  who  presides 
over  the  dawning  of  individual  human  consciousness. 
She  is  known  as  Primary  Education.  And  she  is  also 
wedded  to  a  very  human  husband,  who  is  yet  im- 
mortal, and  whose  name  is  Discipline. 

Worthy  husband  of  a  worthy  Goddess — if  only  Eos 
makes  sure  of  adding  to  her  prayer:  "Give  to  m}' 
husband  eternal  youth  !"  But  when  this  is  forgotten, 
as  sometimes  is  the  case,  then  it  cannot  fail  that  he 
should  grow  old,  and  blind,  and  feeble,  and  queru- 
lous; so  that  no  truh'  divine  eye  could  longer  endure 
to  look  upon  him;  and  even  his  very  name  changes. 
He  is  then  called  Order. 

Discipline  and  Order !  Discipline  is  the  soul  of 
Order.  Order  is  the  mere  body  of  Discipline.  Dis- 
cipline without  Order  is  the  palest  of  ghosts.  Order 
without    Discipline   is  a    mere    death's-head    scaring 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCATION. 


away  all  life.  Discipline  unfolding  into  Order,  Order 
realized  through  Discipline— that  is  Heaven's  First 
Law  in  its  concrete,  divinely  beautiful  form  !  That 
alone  is  worthy  to  be  forever  wedded  to  the  eternally 
youthful  and  beautiful  goddess  who  presides  over  the 
endlessly  repeated  dawning  of  divine  consciousness 
in  human  souls. 

And  yet  this  dawning  consciousness  must  in  every 
instance  come  up  out  of  the  night  of  the  merely  sen- 
suous phase  of  existence  Up  to  this  point  soul  has 
been  drowned  in  Matter,  and  the  dawning  of  conscious- 
ness is  not  so  much  a  process  of  re-awaking  as  a  pro- 
cess of  re-animation.  And  always  at  best  this  involves 
more  or  less  of  amazement,  of  terror,  of  painful  sense 
of  contradiction. 

All  the  more,  then,  must  the  priest  or  the  priestess 
of  Eos  be  careful  to  see  that  Order  is  never  allowed  to 
appear  in  its  mere  death's-head  character,  but  rather 
that  it  shall  appear  as  perfectly  ensouled  by  Discipline; 
and  so,  divinely  beautiful. 

But  this,  too,  has  its  reservation.  For  Beauty 
itself  is  not  without  austerity,  and  sometimes  Disci- 
pline must  even  be  severe.  Does  a  weak  ankle  give 
narrow  limitation  to  the  power  of  locomotion  ?  The 
surgeon  comes  and  with  steel  bands  and  clamps  con- 
strains bones  and  tendons  into  normal  form  and  into 
normal  relation.     The  process  is  irksome,   painful. 


36  ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW EDUCATION." 

But  presently  bones  and  tendons  are  restored  to  their 
proper  state  and  the  individual,  released  from  the 
torturing  bonds,  goes  free  and  is  able  thereafter  to 
keep  step  with  the  music  of  the  world.  You  use  a 
caustic  word  now  and  then.  But  that  is  only  to  burn 
away  the  "proud  flesh"  and  leave  the  soul  clean,  and 
whole,  and  scarless,  and  beautiful. 

Sometimes  you  find  yourself  unable  to  turn  your 
head  either  this  way  or  that.  Your  horizon  is  nar- 
rowed, your  consciousness  self-centered  and  painful. 
You  call  the  phj'sician.  He  comes  and  applies  elec- 
tricit}^  and  makes  you  quiver  with  pain.  But  this  is 
only  to  free  you  from  such  abnormal  constraint  and  to 
render  3'ou  able  to  look  freely  aloft  and  behold  Divin- 
ity shining  through  all  the  stars. 

Discipline  !  One  of  the  divinest  of  all  words  ;  and 
yet  how  rarely  is  it  divinely  comprehended!  The 
eternal  Fact  for  which  it  stands  is  nothing  less  than 
the  solemn  vo3^age  by  which  each  individual  soul 
must  make  discovery  of  the  great  New  World  of 
spiritual  Light  and  Life. 

IV. 

It  is  here,  indeed,  that  we  come  in  full  view  of 
what  to-day  is  with  so  much  insistance  called  the 
N'ezv  Education.  For  the  special  claim  made  in  behalf 
of  what  is  usually  so  described  is  nothing  less  than 


ETHICS  AXD  THE  '' NEW  EDUCATION:'  37 

that  the  true  method  of  adequatel}^  preparing  the  in- 
dividual for  actual  living  is  now  at  length  and  once 
for  all  discovered. 

And  yet  once  more  we  come  upon  a  lurking  am- 
biguity. In  three-fold  form  at  least  it  proves  its 
readiness  to  mock  us.  For  the  New  Education  may 
be  considered  equally  well  in  respect  either  of  its 
subject-matter,  or  of  its  method,  or  of  the  spirit  in 
which  its  method  is  to  be  applied  in  dealing  with  its 
subject-matter. 

In  very  truth  if  we  would  at  all  comprehend  the  so- 
called  New  Education  we  must  carefully  consider  it 
in  each  and  all  these  aspects.  We  must  consider  each 
in  order  that  we  may  comprehend  its  truly  specific 
characteristics.  We  must  consider  all — and  that 
means  each  in  the  full  compass  of  its  relations — in 
order  that  we  ma}^  rightly  estimate  its  claims  as  the 
true  and  truly  adequate  and  therefore  final  mode  of 
preparing  the  individual  for  actual  living. 

As  to  its  subject-matter  the  "New  Education"  puts 
forward  its  first  claim  to  newness  on  the  ground  of  its 
estimate  of  "Nature"  as  the  medium  through  which 
the  truest  and  fullest  development  of  mind  is  to  be 
secured.  Already,  indeed,  a  revolution  has  taken 
place  in  modern  times  in  this  respect.  Education 
has  really  assumed  a  definitel}^  new  character  through 
the  increase  of  attention  given  to  the  tracing  out  of 


j8  ETHICS  AXD  THE  ''XEW  EDUCATION." 

Law  and  Order  as  the  inmost  essence  of  the  world  of 
Nature. 

And  further,  this  essence  of  the  world  of  Nature 
alread}^  involves  the  method  which  the  New  Educa- 
tion puts  forward  as  the  second  specific  mark  of  its 
newness.  And  no  doubt  there  is  justice  in  the  claim. 
In  educational  work  there  had  not  previously,  nor  has 
there  even  j^et,  been  sufficient  emphasis  placed  upon 
the  necessity  of  carefully  following  the  methods  of 
Nature  in  every  department  of  study. 

Only  let  us  beware  of  taking  these  terms  at  too  low 
an  estimate  of  their  value.  For  "methods"  imply 
mind;  and  if  Nature  presents  a  method  then  it  is  fair 
to  conclude — nay  it  is  absolutely  unfair  or  irrational 
not  to  conclude — that  "Nature"  is  but  the  manifesta- 
tion of  Mind;  that  it  is,  in  truth,  nothing  else  than 
the  infinitely  complex  medium  through  which  we 
have  to  discover  the  simpler  modes  of  the  working  of 
the  ultimate  and  perfect  Mind. 

And  in  this  case  it  is  evident  that  to  follow  the 
"methods  of  Nature"  must  thus  far  be  the  same  as  to 
follow  the  methods  of  the  perfect  Mind  Newly  ap- 
prehended and  better  appraised  in  many  ways  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  methods  of  Nature  truly  are. 
But  yet  for  all  that  these  methods  cannot  rightly  be 
said  to  be  but  just  now  for  the  first  time  discovered. 
This  discover}',  in  fact,  has  been  going  on  through 


ETHICS  AND  THE  "NEW  E 


all  the  centuries.  And  both  in  its  subject-matter  and 
in  the  explicit  presentation  of  its  methods  the  New 
Education  owes  much  more  to  Aristotle  than  it  seems 
commonly  aware  of.  Here  and  there,  indeed,  the 
pioneer  work  of  the  great  Greek  in  the  investigation 
of  Nature  is  incidentalh'  referred  to.  But  that  he  was 
the  first  to  map  out,  and  that  he  effectually  and  ade- 
quately mapped  out  the  method  by  which  all  true 
thinking  must  be  done — and  that  is  the  very  essence 
of  the  "method  of  Nature" — is  ver}-  commonly  lost 
sight  of  altogether  in  the  enthusiasm  of  "modern 
acievement. ' ' 

But  this  can  only  be  referred  to  in  passing.  It  may 
be  that  the  "New  Education"  is  better  entitled  to  its 
designation  as  "new"  in  respect  of  the  clear  and  keen 
appreciation  of  the  end  proposed  in  education  and 
also  in  respect  of  the  spirit  in  which  its  work  is 
actually  done. 

This  at  least  is  certain:  That  the  study  of  Nature, 
at  first  leading  away  from  the  study  of  Man,  has  at 
^length  again  led  up  to  man  as  himself  the  necessary 
culmmation  of  Nature.  And  even  so  the  measureless 
contrast  between  man  and  every  other  aspect  of 
Nature  as  the  one  unit  capable  of  measuring  Nature, 
and  hence  as  standing  above  Nature  while  yet  also 
actually  including  it  within  his  own  being — all  this 
has  served  to  emphasize  the  unique  quality  of  man 


ETHICS  AND  THE  '' NEW  EDUCATION: 


and  to  emphasize  anew  the  supreme  significance  in- 
volved in  the  relations  sustained  by  man  to  man. 

In  which  case  it  may  after  all  be  that  the  study  of 
Nature  is  not  to  replace  the  study  of  the  "Humani- 
ties;" but  rather  that  the  study  of  Nature  is  only  to 
prepare  the  wa}^  for  the  more  fruitful  cultivation  of 
the  humanistic  field  as  itself  constituting  the  actual 
culminating  phase  of  "Nature."  And  if  this  is  true 
then  so  far  from  being  already  "antiquated"  the 
"Humanities"  belong  to  the  perennially  "modern" 
world. 

Let  the  Humanities,  thus  newly  interpreted,  be 
transfused  with  the  genuinely  humanitarian  quality 
and  you  will  have  in  full  view  the  very  spirit  of 
the  New  Education  in  the  worthiest  sense  of  the  term. 
Already,  in  fact,  the  New  Education  has  come  to  be 
definitely  characterized  as  above  all  ethical.  So  that 
all  its  other  phases  assume  a  special  tone  as  being 
distinctly  subordinated  to  the  end  of  unfolding 
rational  human  character  on  the  part  of  each  and  every 
child. 

The  child  shall  be  taught,  not  merely  how  to  make 
a  living — that  is  already  the  "New  Education"  of 
yesterday — but  still  more  is  he  to  be  taught,  how  best  to 
live.  And  that  is  the  New  Education  that  must  for- 
ever abide. 

But  even  so  the  ambiguities  have  not  wholly  disap- 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''XEW  EDUCA  TION.' 


peared.  "Nature"  ought  assuredly  to  be  studied  with 
a  view  to  rendering  it  subservient  to  human  needs — 
with  a  view,  first,  to  making  it  productive,  in  the 
highest  measure,  of  those  things,  and  materials  for 
things,  required  to  satisfy  the  necessities  of  man's 
physical  being;  and  secondly,  with  a  view  to  render- 
ing it  organic  to  man's  spiritual  being,  and  this  so  as 
to  emancipate  man  from  the  simple  exhaustion  of 
his  energy  as  inevitably  consequent  upon  all  forms  of 
mere  slave-labor. 

And  yet  this  is  by  no  means  all.  For  Nature  ought 
still  further  to  be  specially  studied  as  the  outer,  con- 
crete unfolding  of  that  great,  majestic  thing  called 
Law.  For  precisely  in  that  does  "Nature"  approach 
nearest  to  "Man."  So  that  while  on  the  one  hand 
it  includes  man,  yet  also  on  the  other  hand,  in  just 
this  subtle  character  of  Law,  it  is  comprehended  by 
and  in  the  mind  of  Man.  And  if  the  highest  term  of 
"Nature' '  is  Law,  and  if  it  is  precisely  in  this,  its  high- 
est term,  that  Nature  is  comprehended  by  and  in  the 
mind  of  Man;  and  if,  further,  to  "comprehend"  is  to 
"think,"  then,  because  that  which  Man  comprehends 
or  thinks  is  by  that  very  fact  already  proven  to  be  of 
the  nature  of  thought,  it  is  evident  that  Nature  itself 
is  a  system  of  thought  and  that  in  comprehending 
Nature  Man  proves  himself  one  in  type  with  that 
supreme  Thinking-Energy  which  is  the  living  Law 
that  constitutes  the  highest  term  of  Nature. 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION. 


V. 

But  in  such  case  how  much  more  complex  must  be 
the  relations  between  man  and  man  than  are  the  rela- 
tions between  thing  and  thing  in  Nature.  And  since 
every  human  life  is  inextricably  involved  in  every 
other  human  life  we  cannot  overlook  the  fact  that  we 
here  come  upon  what  I  venture  to  call  the  Third  a?id 
highest  Law  of  Nature.  And  that  Law  may  be  form- 
ulated as:  Mutual  Helpfulness  in  the  divine  Process  of 
Self  Realization.  And  why  should  not  this  be  given 
the  further  name  of  Transfigured  Ethicsf 

And  yet  are  these  relations  between  man  and  man 
new  relations?  Or  can  it  be  said  that  they  have  been 
but  just  discovered?  The  answer  to  such  questions 
may  be  found  in  Histor}^ 

And  here  we  have  to  turn  once  more  to  Aristotle. 
A  thousand  years  of  waiting  for  Aristotle  before  the 
Ivatin-Christian  world  had  grown  to  such  intellectual 
height  as  to  be  able  to  comprehend  this  great  figure 
even  in  dimmest  outline  !  And  still  two  other  cen- 
turies, and  well-nigh  three,  were  added  before  the 
Aristotelian  Ethics  could  be  rightly  meavSured. 

It  remained  for  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  at  the  close  of 
the  thirteenth  centur}'  to  free  the  great  system-maker—-^ 
or  rather  system-discoverer — from  the  obscurations  and 
perversions  of  the  Arab  commentators,  to  rightly  ap- 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION:'  43 

preciate  the  system  in  its  due  proportion,  to  adapt  it 
to  the  needs  of  Thought  and  Life  as  now  at  length 
fairly  Christianized,  and  in  many  ways  also  to  supple- 
ment the  system. 

Especially  was  this  the  case  with  the  Aristotelian 
Ethics.  Here  we  already  have  the  famed  group  of 
the  four  "Cardinal  Virtues" — b}^  no  means  "new," 
even  with  Aristotle.  These  are  Knowledge,  Tem- 
perance, Courage  and  Justice.  And  it  is  evident 
that  these  present  a  thoroughly  organic  relation  each 
with  each.  As  for  Knowledge,  that  is  presupposed 
in  the  very  notion  of  Virtue.  Virtue  wholly  without 
knowledge  must  forever  remain  a  mere  contradiction 
in  terms. 

Again,  Temperance  is  essentially  self-restraint, 
self-regulation.  And  without  knowledge  this  must 
clearly  be  impossible. 

So,  too.  Courage  is  self-directed  power  in  defense  of 
self,  of  home,  of  country,  and  in  the  positive  conquest 
of  the  world  to  reason-serving  forms.  And  this  also 
is  inconceivable,  save  as  involving  knowledge,  which 
latter  is  the  mode  of  the  mind  that  first  gives  defini- 
tion to  the  mind  itself,  through  discovering  definition 
as  already  existing  in  Nature;  and  which  then  again 
gives  definition  to  the  human  aspects  of  the  world  in 
which  man  lives  and  of  which  man  constitutes  the 
culminating  term. 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCATION, 


But  again  it  is  manifest  that  Knowledge  as  such 
could  not  be  acquired  save  through  self-restraint  and 
prolonged  effort,  implying  the  courageous  facing  of 
fairl}^  endless  menacing  forms  of  opposition.  And 
further,  it  is  evident  that  Courage  without  Temper- 
ance or  self-restraint  must  be  mere  savagery;  while 
Temperance  without  Courage  could  be  nothing  more 
than  simple  helpless  inanition.  And  so  also  without 
Knowledge  both  Temperance  and  Courage  must  be 
blind;  just  as  without  Temperance  and  Courage 
Knowledge  must  be  altogether  empt}-  and  that  would 
be  the  same  as  non-existent. 

Finally,  the  perfect  interfusion  of  all  these  could 
not  but  result  in  a  perfectly  well-ordered  human  world; 
and  this  could  be  nothing  less  than  the  concrete  reali- 
zation of  Justice,  in  which  neither  excess  nor  yet  de- 
fect could  ever  find  unfoldment. 

All  this  St.  Thomas  saw  and  gave  to  it  apprecia- 
tion in  fullest  measure  and  in  noblest  fashion.  But 
he  also  saw  a  limitation,  a  lack,  even  in  so  admirable 
a  presentation  of  the  essential  factors  of  the  moral 
world.  These  virtues,  so  systematically  unfolded  in 
the  Aristotelian  Ethics,  are,  as  St.  Thomas  noted, 
still  only  Juunan  virtues. 

No  doubt  they  belong  to  the  whole  nature  of  Man, 
and  so  cannot  be  separated  from  any  other  possible 
Virtues   pertaining  to  man's  nature.     But  over  and 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION:'  45 

above  them,  though  still  transfusing  and  transfigur- 
ing them,  are  certain  other  distinguishable  qualities 
or  modes  of  the  human  soul  which  St.  Thomas  named 
the  Divijie  Virtues;  and  this  because  he  conceived 
them  to  be  infused  by  Divinity  into  man  and  as  hav- 
ing the  value  of  transforming  humanity  into  manifest 
divine  lifeness. 

These  divine  virtues  are:  Faith,  and  Hope,  and 
Love. 

And  yet  they  are  scarcely  enumerated  before  one  is 
impelled  to  ask:  Faith  in  what?  Hope  for  what? 
lyove  of  what  ?  And  for  us  to-day  the  answer  comes  in 
some  such  fashion  as  this;  Faith  in  the  Law  of  Gravity 
for  one  thing;  faith  in  the  great  Law  of  the  Conser- 
vation of  Energy  for  another  thing;  faith  in  this  Law 
as  the  absolute  unification  of  the  outer  world  or  uni- 
verse— a  unification  in  accordance  with  a  faultless 
method  which,  as  we  have  already  noticed,  bears 
within  it  this  logical  necessity:  That  we  recognize 
Mind  as  the  supreme  Essence  or  positive  Being  of 
the  actual  world. 

And  this,  once  more,  must  compel  us  to  recognize 
the  absolute  oneness  in  Type  as  between  this  World- 
Mind  and  the  individual  human  mind.  And  this 
again  involves  the  infinitely  significant  Article  of 
Faith:  That  7nan  in  his  spiritual  7iature  is  injinitely 
perfectible  a7id,  for  that  very  reaso?iy  beyond  peradve^i- 
ture  inunortal. 


46  ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCATION." 

And  if  this  is  true,  then  the  virtue  of  Hope  involves 
the  fullness  of  infinite  expectanc}^ !  If  ni}^  Faith  is 
borne  on  the  wings  of  Reason  to  infinite,  divine 
heights,  then  Hope  rises  b}^  the  self-same  medium  to 
the  same  exalted  level,  and  hence  I,  in  my  own  per- 
son, may  legitimately  and  literally  hope  for  all  things 
— all  things  at  least  that  pertain  to  the  world  of  divine 
Reason. 

But  so  also  this  raises  the  virtue  of  Love  to  its 
highest  power,  and  proves  it  to  be  also  a  truly  divine 
virtue.  For  Love  is  distinctly  a  relation  between 
Mind  and  Mind.  And  because  all  minds  are  neces- 
sarily of  the  same  divine  Type  then  I  cannot  but 
recognize  some  measure  of  Divinity  in  each  and  every 
member  of  the  human  race. 

And  so  in  our  work  as  teachers,  if  we  possess  this 
divine  virtue  of  Love  in  its  true  significance,  we  can- 
not but  regard  with  deepest  interest  every  soul  com- 
mitted to  our  care.  No  matter  how  crude,  no  matter 
how  perverted,  no  matter  how  repellent  such  soul 
ma}^  be,  still,  as  a  soul,  as  a  mind,  it  cannot  but  pre- 
sent some  qualit}',  some  characteristic  that  must 
call  forth  our  faith,  that  cannot  but  excite  our  hope, 
that  must  command  our  reverence;  something  then 
for  us  to  love  in  the  true  sense  of  devoted  effort  to 
awaken,  to  reclaim  such  soul,  to  guide  it  into  the 
way  of  fulfilling  within  its  own  being  that  divine  Self 
that  is  the  true  Type  of  all  possible  selves- 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION." 


Think  of  your  task  in  this  way  and  you  cannot  fail 
to  see  with  what  scorn  the  great  Teacher  must  have 
made  the  exclamation:  "He  that  loveth  not  his 
brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God 
whom  he  hath  not  seen  !"  For  the  surest  proof  that 
a  man  has  not  seen  God  is  the  fact  that  he  fails  to  see 
God  in  his  brother. 

It  was  said  long  since:  "No  man  can  see  God  and 
live."  It  might  rather  be  said:  No  7nan  can  see  God 
and  go  on  living  the  same  way;  since  to  see  God  is 
nothing  less  than  to  enter  upon  genuinely  transfigured 
existence,  to  die  to  all  that  is  merely  evanescent,  to 
here  and  now  unfold  eternal  Life  within  the  indi- 
vidual soul. 

Such,  in  fact,  is  the  fundamental  element  in  all 
truly  ethical  conduct;  and  it  is  the  very  core  of  all 
that  is  noblest  in  the  "New  Education."  Nor  was 
St.  Thomas  the  first  to  discern  these  supreme  factors 
of  a  truly  ethical  life-  Paul  knew  of  them,  and  all 
thoughtful  minds  in  all  ages  have  more  or  less  been 
conscious  of  them. 

To-day,  indeed,  we  seem  but  just  rising  to  the  level 
at  which  we  can  begin  keenly  to  appreciate  the  splen- 
dor of  the  discovery  of  the  Doctor  Angelicus  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  and  of  his  chief  predecessor  in 
such  prophetic  vision,  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles. 

It  is  this,  I  repeat,  which  is  coming  at  length  to 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION, 


penetrate  the  ver}^  substance  of  our  being  to-da}^;  and 
that  is  the  secret  of  our  newly  awakened  sense  of 
responsibility  to  that  one  of  our  brothers  who  is  fast 
losing  the  divine  likeness  through  crime  and  sin,  as 
well  as  toward  that  other  brother  from  whom  we  our- 
selves may  hope  for  honor  and  advantage.  That  is 
the  secret  of  the  new  movement  of  Prison  Reform;  a 
movement  which  looks  through  rags  of  destitution, 
through  all  deformities  of  sin  and  shame,  and  sees 
still  shining  there,  though  it  be  ever  so  dimh^,  a 
divinely  constituted  unit,  an  undying  soul  worthy  to 
be  redeemed  and  worth,  beyond  all  calculation,  all 
effort  and  expenditure  that  its  redemption  can  require. 

That  is  the  secret,  too,  of  the  newly  awakened  mis- 
sionary spirit  of  University  Extension  which  will  not 
wait  until  souls  stumble  through  pitfalls  of  ignorance 
into  the  inferno  of  sin  and  crime,  but  will  rather  save 
them  from  such  agonies  by  guiding  them,  while  yet 
innocent,  into  clear  knowledge  of  and  reverence  for 
the  eternal  Laws  of  godlike  Character. 

And  truly  may  we  apply  to  this  newly  awakened 
spirit  of  divine  Humanity  a  world-old  name  world-full 
of  meaning.  And  that  name  is:  Enthiisiasyn,  which, 
being  interpreted,  means:  The  Seiise  of  God zvithin  one. 

And  with  this  as  the  core  of  every  motive  of  your 
lives,  you,  as  teachers,  cannot  fail  in  your  daily 
school-room    tasks,    to    exhibit    spontaneously    that 


ETHICS  AND  THE  ''NEW  EDUCA  TION.' 


beautiful  quality  represented  by  the  word  of  which 
Matthew  Arnold  was  so  fond :  Epieikeia,  and  to 
which  he  gave  singularly  apt  rendering  in  the  phrase: 
Sweet  reaso7iable7iess. 

Infused  with  these  divinest  virtues  of  Faith  and 
Hope  and  I^ove  you  cannot  fail  of  genuine  enthusiasm 
in  your  work,  nor  of  sweet  reasonableness  in  the  man- 
ner of  your  work.  And  working  in  such  manner  you 
cannot  fail  of  proving  to  be  in  your  own  persons  the 
divinely  appointed  because  divinely  attuned  media 
through  which  groping  souls  shall  find  true  answer  to 
that  wonderful  prayer  :     ''Lead,  Kindly  Light!'' 


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